Manage Subinventories and Locators

Inventory Organizations, Subinventories, and Locators: How They Fit Together

You can structure the relationship of inventory
organizations, subinventories, and locators to match the physical
structure of your warehouse.

One inventory organization contains two subinventories.
One subinventory contain no locators, and the other subinventory contains
two locators.

Inventory Organizations

An inventory organization can contain one or more subinventories.

Subinventories

Define at least one subinventory for each inventory
organization that you want to transact items into, from, or within.

Locators

If desired, a subinventory can contain one or more locators.

Subinventories: Explained

Define at least one subinventory for each inventory
organization of item and inventory management usage.

You can create the following kinds of subinventories:

Storage subinventories

Receiving subinventories

Storage Subinventories

A storage subinventory is used to store material
in the warehouse. Material in a storage subinventory is reflected
in on-hand quantity.

Receiving Subinventories

A receiving subinventory is used to temporarily
store material before it is placed in a storage subinventory. Material
in a receiving subinventory is not reflected in on-hand quantity.
An inventory organization does not need to contain a receiving subinventory.

Creating Subinventories
and Locators: Points to Consider

You should take into account the following
when planning to create subinventories and locators:

Subinventory-locator hierarchy

Considerations for creating subinventories

Considerations for creating locators

Creating the Subinventory-Locator Hierarchy

You should consider the following when planning the
hierarchy of subinventories and their corresponding locators:

The importance, for your organization,
of creating a subinventory and locator hierarchy that represents the
physical layout of your warehouse.

Your organization's plan for the movement
of item and labor, and utilization of labor and equipment, for putaway
and picking.

You should refer to these plans when
sequencing the picking order of subinventories and locators.

Considerations for Creating Subinventories

You should consider the following when planning to
create subinventories:

How many storage and receiving subinventories
are required in your warehouse.

Whether you need to distinguish between
receiving and storage subinventories.

Use storage
subinventories for tracking on-hand quantities.

Whether you want to associate items
to subinventories and their locators by creating item subinventories.

Considerations for Creating Locators

You should consider the following when planning to
create locators:

Whether you want to allow users to
dynamically create locators.

Whether you want to add items to locators.

Whether it is necessary to implement
locator control.

If you decide to implement locator
control, consider whether you need to implement locator control for
the organization, for individual subinventories, or at the item level.

The level of granularity required
for locators, such as row/rack or row/rack/bin.

FAQs for Subinventories and Locators

What's a locator?

A locator is a physical area within a subinventory
where you store material, such as a row, aisle, bin, or shelf. You
can transact items into and out of a locator.

Why can't I assign
locator control options to some subinventories?

You can assign locator control to the subinventory
only if an inventory organization's locator control parameter
is set to assign locator control at the subinventory level.

What happens if I select different locator control options for a subinventory?

Select Dynamic Entry to require entry of a locator for each item; the user can choose a valid predefined locator, or
define a locator dynamically at the time of transaction. Select Item Level to define locator information for
specific items. Select Prespecified to require entry of one of the predefined locators for each item.

Why can't I select a particular subinventory
as the item transaction default subinventory for a particular item?

If the item is associated with one or more
subinventories (as one or more item subinventories), you can
only select the subinventories with which the item is associated.

Manage Interorganization Parameters

Enabling Interorganization
Transfers: Example

Interorganization transfers enable you to
transfer particular items between organizations.

Scenario

You are charged with performing the prerequisites
that are necessary for your users to perform interorganization transfers
of a particular item.

To enable interorganization transfers, you perform
the following:

Ensure that you have created the
inventory organization from which the item will be transferred, in
addition to the inventory organization to which the item will be transferred.

In the item's attributes, ensure
that the item is assigned to the inventory organization from which
the item will be transferred, in addition to the inventory organization
to which the item will be transferred.

Manage interorganization parameters
to define the relationships that exist between the inventory organizations.

Ensure that the item has the same
unit of measure in each inventory organization.

FAQs for Interorganization Parameters

What are interorganization
parameters?

Interorganization parameters define the relationships
that exist between source and destination inventory organizations.
Define these relationships to enable users to create interorganization
transfers. One interorganization parameter enables a one-way interorganization
transfer from a source inventory organization to a destination inventory
organization. To enable two-way interorganization transfers between
two inventory organizations, create two interorganization transfers,
with each inventory organization functioning as a source inventory
organization and a destination inventory organization.

What's the difference between Receipt and Shipment FOB options?

Select Receipt to specify that the shipment organization owns the shipment until
the destination organization receives it.

Select Shipment to specify that the destination organization owns the shipment when
the source organization ships it, and while the shipment is in transit.

What happens if I select different receipt routing options for the In Transit
transfer type?

Select Direct to deliver this item directly to its location at receipt. Select Inspection to receive this item first, inspect
it, then deliver. Select Standard to receive this item first, then deliver without inspection.

Manage Account Aliases

Creating an Account
Alias: Example

There are multiple situations for which you
might want to create an account alias. The following scenario illustrates
an example of one such situation.

Creating an Account Alias for a Temporary Project

Your company has a temporary project for which costs
need to be tracked to a particular account. You create an easily-recognizable
account alias for the account and have your employees cost the project's
transactions to this account alias. You set the account alias to expire
when the project ends, so that users cannot cost transactions to this
particular project after the project ends.

FAQs for Account Aliases

What's an account
alias?

An account alias is an alternate name for an
account number, and is used to more easily identify an account when
performing a transaction. You can select an account alias as a demand
source when performing a reservation; you can also select an account
alias as a transaction source when performing a miscellaneous transaction.

Manage Inventory Transaction Sources and Types

Defining a Transaction
Source and Transaction Type: Example

The following scenario illustrates how you
would define a transaction source and transaction type for a particular
business need:

Scenario

Your organization frequently donates items that you
manufacture to charity. You might want to define a transaction source
called "Charity" and a transaction type called "Issue to Charity",
using the "Issue from Stores" transaction action. When you
donate an item to charity, you create a miscellaneous transaction
using the Issue to Charity transaction type.

Transaction
Types: Explained

A transaction type is used to classify transactions.
Examples of transaction types are Purchase Order Receipt, Sales Order
Issue, and Inventory Subinventory Transfer.

Transaction types are combinations of:

Transaction sources

Transaction actions

Transaction Sources

A transaction source is the type of entity
against which a transaction is charged. Along with a transaction action,
a transaction source uniquely identifies a transaction type. Examples
of transaction sources are Purchase Order, Sales Order, and Inventory.

Transaction Actions

A transaction action is a system-defined type
of material movement or cost update. Examples of transaction actions
are Receipt into Stores, Issue from Stores, and Subinventory Transfer.

FAQs for Transaction Sources and Types

What happens if I enable status control for a transaction type?

The transaction type for which you enable status
control becomes an allowed transaction type for new material statuses
that you create. When material status control is enabled for a transaction
type and you are creating or editing a material status, you can choose
to leave transactions of that transaction type as allowed, or disallow
transactions of that transaction type.

If you do not enable status control for a particular
transaction type, transactions of that transaction type are always
allowed.

Manage Inventory Transaction Reasons

Inventory Transaction
Reasons: Explained

An inventory transaction reason is a standard
means of classifying or explaining the reason for a transaction, and
can be used when performing any type of material transaction. For
example, you could define the inventory transaction reasons Theft,
Misplaced Items, and Damaged Items for classifying adjustment transactions
when performing a cycle count or physical inventory count.

FAQs for Inventory Transaction Reasons

What happens if I select a reason type and reason context for an inventory transaction
reason?

The transaction reason will only be selectable
when you perform an inventory transaction in the reason type and reason
context that you select. For example, if you create an inventory transaction
reason with a reason type of Receiving and a reason context of Change
Subinventory/Locator, the user will only be able to select that transaction
reason when the user is in Receiving and moving material to a different
subinventory and locator combination.

Manage Item Transaction Defaults

Item Transaction
Defaults: Explained

An item transaction default specifies the
default subinventory or locator for a specified item when the specified
shipping or receiving transaction is performed on that item. The default
subinventory or locator is included in the item's default shipping
or receiving information. Note that for movement requests, if a user
does not specify a locator when transacting an item into a locator-controlled
subinventory that you specify as the item transaction default, the
application determines the put-away locator.

Manage Material Statuses

Material Status
Control: Explained

Material status control restricts the movement
and usage of portions of on-hand inventory.

Using material status control enables you to control
whether you can pick or ship a sales order, or issue material for
a sales order or account. You can also specify whether material needs
to be quarantined until you inspect it. In addition, you can determine
whether products with a particular status can be reserved, included
in available to promise calculations, or netted in production planning.

This topic discusses:

Material status control levels

Material status transactions

Cumulative effective status

Material Status Control Levels

You assign material statuses at the subinventory,
locator, lot, and serial number levels.

When you assign a material status to a subinventory
or locator, items are not assigned the material status of the subinventory
or locator. Instead, items take on the behavior indicated by the material
status that is assigned to the subinventory or locator.

To assign a material status to a lot or serial number,
you must first enable the item attributes Lot Status Enabled and Serial
Status Enabled on the item in the item master organization.

You can optionally assign a default lot or serial
number status to an item in the item master organization. When you
do so, the item retains the lot or serial number status through all
inventory transactions, including interorganization transfers.

Material Status Transactions

When you create a material status, you select the
allowed and disallowed transaction types for that material status.
Note that you must enable status control for transaction types to
make them available to allow and disallow. Transactions types for
which you do not enable status control are always allowed.

Cumulative Effective Status

A cumulative effective status is the combination of
all disallowed transactions. If a transaction is disallowed at the
serial number, lot, locator, or subinventory level, the transaction
fails. For example, if you have a locator whose status disallows miscellaneous
issues, and that locator is in a subinventory whose status disallows
sales order issues, you cannot perform transactions of either transaction
type for material in that locator.

Creating Material
Statuses: Points to Consider

Material statuses provide more flexible control
of transacting material. For example, you can create a Damaged material
status to disable damaged material from being shipped to a customer.

Before creating material statuses, you should plan:

Determine if material statuses are
necessary

Determine allowed and disallowed
transaction types

Determine material statuses to define

Determining if Material Statuses are Necessary

Consider the needs of your organization, and
whether it is necessary to create material statuses.

For example, if your organization operates on a small
scale or you want to manage the statuses or items manually, it might
not be necessary to create material statuses. By default, all the
material is in Active status, which allows transactions with no restrictions.

Determining Allowed and Disallowed Transaction
Types

Consider the needs of your organization, and
the transaction types that should be allowed.

For example, damage to your warehouse's racks is making
locations in the racks, and the material in those locations, inaccessible.
You can create a material status to disallow transactions on the inaccessible
material. Once the damaged racks have been repaired, you can create
a material status to allow transactions on the material that is once
again accessible.

Determining Material Statuses to Define

Consider the needs of your organization, and
the material statuses that are necessary to define for your organization.

Following are examples of questions that you can ask
when determining material statuses for your organization:

What are the kinds of items that
are handled in the warehouse?

Does the consumption of material
needs to be restricted when it needs to inspected for quality assurance?

Should users be allowed to ship material,
such as food or pharmaceuticals, to customers if the refrigerator
storing the material is broken?

Manage Pick Slip Grouping Rules

Pick Slip Grouping
Rules: Explained

By creating pick slip grouping rules, you
organize how picking lines for released sales orders are grouped on
to pick slips. For example, if you select Shipment as a grouping criterion,
then all picking lines on a pick slip are for the same shipment.

The following aspects of a pick slip grouping rule
can reduce time spent on planning and organizing:

Group pick slips based on criteria

Specify effective date for the grouping
rule

Criteria Based Grouping of Picking Lines

Enables you to specify more than one grouping
criteria for picking. For example, if you select Shipment and Ship-to
Location as grouping criteria, then all the picking lines grouped
together on a pick slip are for the same shipment and ship-to location.

Effective Date

Enables you to specify the date from which
you want the pick slip grouping rule to come into effect.

Manage Picking Rules

Picking Rules: Explained

Picking Rule enables you to define the criteria
that determines how material is consumed. For example, LIFO, FIFO,
Lot Ascending, Locator Ascending. After you create a picking rule,
it can be enabled for usage in various organizations.

A group of picking rules with different criteria can
address the various needs of consuming material in an organization.
The following criteria determine how material should be consumed:

Material restriction

Allow partial picking

Material sort

Material Restriction

The material restriction criteria you to specify:

Shelf Life Days: Indicates the minimum
number of days prior to expiry that the material can be consumed.
For example, if an item with an expiration date of June 30 is assigned
to a picking rule that dictates a 60-day shelf life restriction, then
that item must be picked no later than May 1, which is 60 days before
its expiration date.

Enforce Single Lot: The enforcement
of a single lot for the specific picking rule. If not, multiple lots
may be picked.

Allow Partial Picking

Enables you to specify if the demand line
can be partially picked if the total quantity for the order lines
is not available. For example, the requested quantity is 100 and the
quantity available using the picking rule is 60. In this case, allow
partial picking determines if the available quantity of 60 is picked
or nothing is picked at all.

Material Sort

The sort attributes that you can assign priorities
to are Lot, Locator, Subinventory, and Revision. You can have only
one priority based on a sort attribute and type such as Locator Ascending,
Locator Descending, Revision Ascending, or Revision Descending. For
example, if you assign the sort attribute and type Lot Ascending to
priority 1, then you cannot assign the same sort attribute to another
priority in the same picking rule regardless of the sort type being
Ascending or Descending.

Material Sort
Criteria: Points to Consider

Material sort criteria enable you to specify
a priority to the sorting criteria. You can do this by assigning priority
levels, with priority 1 being of highest priority and priority 3 being
of lowest priority. The sort criteria can be based on four different
attributes; Lot, Locator, Subinventory, and Revision. Before assigning
material sort criteria priorities, consider:

What sort criteria is relevant to
the picking rule you are creating?

Relevance to the picking rule

Consider the relevance of the sort criteria
to the picking rule you are creating. For example, if the picking
rule you are creating is primarily aimed at lots, then select sort
criteria that will assist you in sorting by lots; Lot number ascending
or lot number descending.

Manage Picking Rule Assignments

Picking Rule
Assignments: Explained

Picking rule assignment enables you assign
an organization and sequence to a picking rule. It provides mechanisms
to:

Indicate if a picking rule can be
used in an organization.

Prioritize the various rules available
to be used in an organization.

Define set of criteria when a rule
should be activated.

You can then assign certain criteria to the picking
rule assignment based on which the material will be picked. Note that
the same picking rule can have multiple rule assignments in an organization.
The following example demonstrates how picking rule assignments work
for an item that is lot controlled and expiration enabled.

Picking Rule name

Rule details

Rule 1

LOT FIFO

Rule 2

LOT LIFO

The facility usually follows the FIFO rule and ships
the oldest material first. However, for their loyal customers, for
example, Loyal, they would like to follow the LIFO rule and ship the
newest material first. The loyal customers are given priority over
their other customers. In order to achieve this, the facility needs
to have two picking rule assignments in order of priority.

Picking Rule name

Picking Rule Assignment criteria

Rule 2

Item is specified and customer is specified as "Loyal"
as part of the criteria.

Rule 1

Item is specified but customer is not specified as
part of the criteria.

According to the way the picking rules are assigned
above, the application will first look at the high priority assignment
and apply the picking rule assignment in the following manner:

Scenario

Result

Demand line for specified item and from customer specified
as "Loyal."

Rule 2 is applied and newest material is supplied
following LIFO.

Demand line is for specified item and customer is
not "Loyal."

Rule 1 is applied and oldest material is supplied
following FIFO.

Picking rule assignment provides you the flexibility
to:

Assign sequence to the rule assignment

Define criteria for the assigned
picking rule

Assigning Sequence

Enables you to prioritize the rule assignment
with respect to the other rule assignments.

Define Criteria

Enables you to specify the details when a
rule on a particular picking rule assignment is activated. For example,
if you create a picking rule that picks lots based on FIFO and select
a specific customer in the criteria, then according to the picking
rule assignment, the item is picked for that customer based on FIFO.

Picking Rule
Assignment Criteria: Points to Consider

You can select any combination of criteria
after assigning a picking rule. Selecting the criteria enables you
to specify when the rule assignment is used. For example, if a picking
rule, which allocates lots based on FIFO, is assigned to a particular
customer, then the material picked for that customer is allocated
based on FIFO.

Before selecting criteria for picking rule
usage consider:

Which combination of picking rule
and criteria will help achieve optimum material selection for your
organization?

What is your organization's preference
for picking based on the available criteria?

Specifying criteria for picking rule assignment

You must consider the combination of picking
rule and criteria that will meet your requirements on material consumption
in your organization. For example, you have a picking rule that ships
material based on Lot FIFO. You can assign that rule to a particular
customer so that material for that customer is shipped based on FIFO.

Specifying criteria based on preference

Before selecting the criteria, you must consider
your organization's preference for picking based on the available
criteria.

Customer

Consider
your organization's picking order preference on what material to ship
to which customer. For example, if certain kind of material should
be picked based on customer requirements, then the rule assignments
with customer as criteria are effective.

Carrier

Consider
your organization's preference on what material to ship based on carrier.
For example, if the demand line is to be shipped via a specific carrier,
then the carrier-based rule assignment will be effective.

UOM class

Consider
your organization's preference on what material to ship based on UOM
class. For example, if the demand line to be shipped specifies a UOM
that belongs to a particular UOM class, then the UOM class-based rule
assignment will be effective

UOM

Consider
your organization's preference on what material to ship to based on
UOM. For example, you have the following rules. Rule 1 sorts the subinventories
in such a way that the item is stored by UOM 'Case' in the top subinventories.
Rule 2 sorts the subinventories in such a way that the item is stored
by UOM 'Each' in the top subinventories. You can sequence the rule
assignments such that the correct demand lines with appropriate UOMs
are picked using the appropriate rules.

Source subinventory

Consider your organization's preference on what material to ship
to from which source subinventory.

Destination subinventory

Consider your organization's preference on what material
to ship to which destination subinventory.

Item

Consider
your organization's preference for particular items. For example,
if the material needs to be consumed in a certain way because of the
characteristics of the item, then the appropriate picking rule should
be assigned to the item criteria. Take the case of milk products that
should be consumed within the expiration date. In that case, a picking
rule that has shelf life material restriction and assigned to item
criteria "milk products" can work best in optimizing material selection.

Item type

Consider
your organization's preference to ship material that belong to particular
item types. You can select the best possible combination of a picking
rule and item type that will help make selection efficient.

ABC Assignment Group and Class

Consider your organization's preference on material to
ship based on a particular ABC assignment group and class.

Transaction source type

Consider your organization's preference on material to
ship based on a particular transaction source type.

Transaction type

Consider your organization's preference on material to ship based
on a particular transaction type.

Transaction action

Consider your organization's preference on material to ship based
on a particular transaction action.

FAQs for Picking Rule Assignments

What happens if I select different date type options?

You can enter different values into the Start
Date and End Date fields. For example, if you select Week, you can
enter 1 to represent the first week of the year, and 52 to represent
the last week of the year. If you select Day of the Month, you can
enter 1 to represent the first day of the month, and 31 to represent
the last day of the month.